Demons Cast No Shadows
by Xallisto
Summary: Naruto finds himself in the past with no recollection of his mission, but waltzing back into Konoha is not as simple as he might have thought.


Demons Cast No Shadows.

He had no idea just how it had happened, but, he was in the past, of this he was fairly sure. Back in the future, was that tense even right? He was sure that getting his tenses right was going to be an ongoing problem. Anyway, back in the future, when the war had not being going as well the leadership of the joint shinobi army had sought out the best seal masters in all the allied nations, their task was to create a justu to do exactly this, he knew this because they had approached both him, B and many others and had asked them to help power this jutsu.

In the end though that plan never came to fruition, the worst of the war was averted shortly after and the jutsu was put forever into a deep and dark place never to be seen again, or at least that's what he thought, except here he was and with no recollection of how either.

 _"That's kind of a big flaw! Do i have a mission here? Is there a reason i was sent back"_ Naruto thought.

Whatever the reason, Naruto now had to operate from a position of assumption and that was not good. Had the war taken a turn for the worse? had the jutsu been cleared again for usage? Had he been specifically selected? Did others travel back as well? All Naruto knew was that he had a lot of questions and zero answers. Naruto decided that the best thing to do was to assume the original mission of the time travel jutsu to stop Madara and his nefarious plan. At least until his memories of why he was here returned.

Naruto decided the best thing to do was to return to Konoha and gather information, but that was far easier said than done, no unregistered shinobi could pass through the barrier that surrounded the village undetected, it wasn't as simple as waltzing through the window of the Hokages office throwing the firsts necklace on the table and declaring that he was from the future and with a quip about how he could easily have killed the Hokage before the ANBU responded.

Naruto laughed out loud which earned him a few odd stares in the ramen place he was eating under henge.

 _"There was a time when i really would have done that, and been subdued, whipped down to T & I, and in an interrogation room with any one of the divisions unsavory characters within 30 minutes."_

No, Naruto had to follow the rule of the 3 A's. Assess, Analyze and Act.

 _"in that order kid"_ he can just hear Jiraiya saying in his mind's eye, shortly followed by

 _"thats boring ero-sennin! teach me a cool jutsu"_

Narutos countenance darkened

 _"how foolish i was, i wish i had paid more attention when you were alive, i miss you old man"_

Even the knowledge that Jiraiya was alive in the here and now did nothing to improve his mood, he would not be the same man, if Naruto was truly in the past then that same man would almost certainly never come to exist.

Shaking himself out of his funk Naruto started to think about ways to gather intel in Konoha, But before he could even begin to do that he needed to get into the village proper, as an unregistered shinobi this was frankly impossible for Naruto, after all he was a jinchuriki his passing through the barrier unregistered would set off every alarm in Konoha he would be surrounded by a thousand ninja within moments, the only way in was to not go through it at all, he needed to go through the main gate where there was no barrier, but what _is_ there are sensor ninjas operating in squads of 3, 24 hours a day. It was not a simple case of joining a merchant guild and strolling in, they would be on him in a flash that way as well.

Naruto cursed the fact that he wasn't book smart this was gonna be harder than he thought if only Shikamaru was here, he would know what to do. Fighting his way in and hiding was an option, a stupid one, but one all the same, right down there with his other stupid idea of killing a Konoha ninja and assuming his identity but even that would only allow him to go through the gate not the barrier. Naruto shook his head.

 _"THINK!"_

After an hour of raking his brains Naruto had come up with nothing, deciding to take a break from brainstorming he decided to read the paper when the headline caught his attention.

 **Meru of the Shifting Sand routs Uchiha Koto in underwhelming chunin exam final.**

Will the Uchiha look to redeem their pride in 6 months when the exams travel to Konoha?

What had been billed as a close match up turned out to be the least entertaining of all for the twenty thousand spectators at the Dune Bowl...

Naruto had already stopped reading, a plan formulating in his mind, as a participant in the next chunin exams he _could_ waltz right into Konoha, independent shinobi were rare and usually laughed at and ridiculed as a joke by the bigger countries but they were not totally unheard of, although Naruto had never heard of one trying to enter the chunin exams before.

Naruto was skeptical, a totally unknown ninja would arouse serious suspicion especially as he had no backing from any major village. It was highly likely that even if they agreed it would entail a visit to T & I and that was something he definitely had to avoid.

Naruto's list of possibilities was getting smaller and smaller, back in the past or was it the future Orochimaru had infiltrated the exams, but Naruto had to begrudgingly admit that he was not as smart as him either, replacing one of the exam teams would probably work for a short time and he was certainly capable of doing it but Naruto wanted to be able to stick around and not be looking over his shoulder.

Could he petition one of the other villages for some kind of backing? Maybe one of the smaller ones like Taki? That also seemed like a shot in the dark at best

Naruto cursed his intelligence for the umpteenth time he had a whole bunch of bad ideas, maybe it was going to be a case of picking the best of a very bad bunch. Either way he had 6 months to think about it.

For the time being he had to blend in and not arouse any suspicion so he went back to the bar where he had agreed to work in exchange for a room, just as he was walking through the door and heading up to his room to get some much needed sleep he heard something that sounded startlingly familiar.

"He he he he, i like it when girls play hard to get, but your no match for the charm of the great Jiraiya"

"KYAAAAA, PERVERT"

There was a noise that sounded like a slap, then feet skittering across a wooden floor followed by the sound of a bottle of sake hitting a table top.

"Why do they always do that, oh well, more sake over here!"

Naruto was assaulted by a whirlwind of emotions from absolute elation to mortal fear, enough to make him freeze on the spot, thankfully Jiraiya was around the other side of the establishment and could not see him and as much as Naruto wanted to go around there and tell him everything he knew he could not, now was not the time for him to fall under Jiraiya's gaze despite his outward appearance as a bit of a buffoon, the man was actually incredibly sharp and would peg Naruto in a moment. Thankfully Jiraiya was not a sensor type ninja so as long as he stayed out of his way he should be alright.

Naruto rounded the corner and went to his room, he had had every intention of going to sleep, but now he was wide awake. Naruto was not likely to get a wink of sleep until Jiraiya's presence was gone which did not happen for several more hours, eventually Naruto drifted off into an unsteady sleep.

" _Naruto! You need to fix the damage, do u hear me? You need to fix the…"_

"What?" Naruto mumbled in his sleep

Naruto woke with a start.

"Talking in his sleep is not a good trait for a spy to have, kid" a voice from the dark corner of the room said

 _"Oh shit"_ Naruto thought

In an instant Naruto was out his bed, but Jiraiya was faster and had already cleared the room and landed a blow right to his face, the force behind it was incredible, it made him realise just how much Jiraiya had held back when they spared all those years ago, Naruto went crashing through the bedroom wall and into the wall in the adjacent room _._

"Thats because im not a spy old man" Naruto said

"You are an unknown ninja inside Fire Countries borders that automatically makes you a spy"

Realising he was not gonna talk his way out of this Naruto's next instinct was to flee, not that that was going to be easy, but he had several aces up his sleeve if Jiraiya would give him half an opening he should be able to pull something off.

Jiraiya was upon him again, this time with a flurry of punches designed to draw Naruto into a high block, then he was sure Jiraiya was gonna nail him with a kick in the stomach, only it never came and he was slammed through another wall with another haymaker to the face followed by a plethora of kunai that Naruto was able to deflect only to be finally hit with the kick he had been expecting last time, Naruto had no opening, in a straight up taijutsu fight he was no match for Jiraiya at all. He needed to back off and create some space, he had a 1 shot idea to get the hell out of here, Jiraiya came again this time Naruto ducked and weaved, Jiraiyas right hook took a chunk out of a brick wall, Naruto saw an opening for him to dark backwards and put his hands together quickly.

 **Shadow Clone Jutsu**

Two Naruto's appeared either side of him and darted off in different directions.

"Two shadow clones? Kid, thats a lot of chakra to waste on a superfluous technique"

Jiraiya seemed to be expecting the clones to be used in some sort of attack and so was a little more conscientious with his attacks.

The fight continued for a little while more, Jiraiya not using any large scale techniques because of the heavy civilian population nearby and Naruto doing likewise although Jiraiya did not know that.

Fortunately Naruto being who he was he could fight this losing battle and take the constant hits very well, this seemed to impress Jiraiya to no end.

"Your pretty tough kid, i had fun, but it's time to end this"

"I couldn't agree more" Naruto countered

Naruto instantly recognised the hand seals for the summoning technique, knowing that he was out of time and only had 1 shot with his plan if Jiraiya was able to summon a Toad they would instantly know he had been gathering nature chakra and tell Jiraiya and he would lose the moment of surprise that he needed to get out of here.

Naruto sent the signal to dispel the clones and the effect was instant, Jiraiya's eyes widened with shock and Naruto knew he had him, he darted forward with speed that even Jiraiya could not counter and smashed him with a straight right, Jiraiya to his credit was still able to manage a hasty block but Naruto felt the Ulna and Radius of Jiraiya's right forearm break as he flew backwards through no less than 5 buildings.

Seeing his opportunity Naruto turned tail and ran as fast as he could in the opposite direction enhanced with sage chakra even Jiraiya would not be able to catch him, within 5 minutes he was 20 miles clear of the city and was certain that he had lost Jiraiya.

Naruto could not help but curse his luck, normally he had such good luck, but this place seemed to drain it all away.

Jiraiya cradling his now useless arm frantically searched the city and its outskirts but he was pretty sure he had lost whoever that was. Jiraiya cursed his stupidity he had committed the cardinal sin of his profession he had underestimated his opponent, he should have known something was up nobody tanks hits like that. And that wasn't even the worst of it there was another sage out there and not a phony one like him a real genuine grandmaster sage, Jiraiya saw no outward appearance of whichever summon animal taught him which was a dead give away that he was a master, he could not help but feel the weight of his constant failures pressing down upon him, one thing was for sure, he was not looking forward to reporting this to the old man.

With a heavy sigh he turned around and started back towards Konoha.

Naruto had bested Jiraiya, any other ninja in the world might have been very proud of that fact, but it only left Naruto feeling hollow. And to make matters worse he shown his sage mode to Jiraiya of all people, the one man who would be able to recognise it instantly, he will undoubtedly go back and report to Sarutobi that there is another sage out there, he had given away valuable intel and gained nothing for it, the exact opposite of what he was supposed to be doing.

"Stupid Idiot" Naruto said out loud to no one.

Naruto was utterly at a loss, he could not remember a time when he was so deflated, even in the dark days of his youth such as they were, its not as though they were that bad, it's not as though mobs formed on his birthday that beat and raped him, but there was always a naive youthful exuberance that buoyed his spirit.

Thinking back on the fight with Jiraiya and how he might have been in trouble had Jiraiya got off that summon, got him thinking about the Toads, and in particular the great toad sage. Naruto's eyes lit up.

"That's it, the great toad sage, he would surely know something about this time travel stuff"

But how to get there, since there was no way he was signing the Toad scroll, that left only one other way, go to Myobokuzan the long way. And what a long way it was, Naruto reckoned it would take a good 4 months via conventional means and neither of the routes were exactly friendly to unknown ninjas, either he caught a boat from eastern fire country and sailed through water country or he hiked through the mountains of lightning country and caught a much shorter boat from there, Naruto decided that after his run in with Jiraiya the path of least resistance would probably be the wisest course of action and he believed that sailing through water country rather than going across land in lightning was that path.

So Naruto doused the fire gathered up the very few things he had and set off to Myobokuzan in the hope that he can gain an audience with the great sage.


End file.
